Beloved, Christ has already suffered and died for your wounds and holds the healing balm for your heart in His hands. Your offender may never pay for his/her sins in this life to your satisfaction; they may never apologize or acknowledge their wrong. What if the offender has died? If you required their apology to heal, then you leave yourself carrying an open wound until you die.

LEAVING BABYLON pgs. 76-77 Once you choose God’s will, you must learn the new idealsand attitudes of your heavenly Father. This is the reconstruction of your will. This reconstruction happens in the flow of the River of God.

As your mind is being renewed, it must be refurnished with the knowledge of the will of God. We must be reeducated. Imagine your mind is like a room full of old, dusty, broken-down furniture, and that each piece of furniture represents an attitude that you operate in when circumstances arise in your life, your warped will. Anxiety, envy, pride, anger, resentment, and other destructive attitudes decorate the room of your mind. You use this defective furniture although it is dirty and stains your soul and clouds your thought processes. You use it although it makes the situations of your life worse. You use it although it destroys the relationships with the ones you love. You sit on this furniture although the legs break and leave you lopsided in your understanding. Life doesn’t make sense or has no purpose or meaning.This old furniture leaves you confused and wandering through life, wondering, “What went wrong?” Our former attitudes are inadequate and will never bring the true knowledge of God and the true understanding of the human condition.

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”(2 Cor. 5:17 niv)

This life s only training and testing ground in which God’s agenda is paramount.Whether you get with the program or not, God’s will shall be carried out; His agenda will be fulfilled.Every circumstance, every incident, every victory and every sorrow goes past His approval before it enters your life, and it is always for your good and eternal growth in Him.Sessions in Pain pg. 140

AUTHOR’S COMMENTS: I have found that God’s training is a lot like learning to rock climb. He carefully places a rock within our grasp for us to reach for and pull ourselves up to the next level until we finally grow-up and overcome!

He whoovercomes [the world through believing that Jesus is the Son of God], I will grant to him [the privilege] to sit beside Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down beside My Father on His throne (Rev. 3:21)

Babylon the Great is not a specific location on the earth. The Bible calls her “the great prostitute, who sits on many waters” (Rev. 17:1, nlt). She is a way of doing business and interacting with others. She is the way that is born out of pride, greed, and selfishness. She is the Great Whore, who has ravaged humanity since the sin in the garden. Since Babylon is not a location, there is no physical place to run and be safe from her. There is only God. With all of our best laid plans to keep ourselves safe, there is only God (Ps. 91:1–2).

“Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.” (Revelation 18:2–3, nkjv)

So how do you reconcile your tragedies with a loving and forgiving God? How can you go forward without fear? What is the resolution to your assessment of your life? The Psalmist records that, “It was good for me that I have been afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes” (Psalm 119:71).

Session in Pain pg. 181

AUTHOR’S COMMENT: You can only understand this declaration

from the psalmist on the other side of tragedy and pain. There is a special clarity that comes when walking through pain with God. We learn what is relevant, what is eternal, and what is really good for us. We see the Love and wisdom of the Father through new eyes. And He will raise us from our pain with the faith to go forward without fear.

The first and most difficult step to leaving Babylon is to recognize who and what she is so that we can change our thinking. We must also understand what has happened to humanity since our fall to realize why we must leave. We have become comfortable and even feel successful here. Therefore, it will be difficult to begin “uprooting” our minds. This uprooting will only come through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The second step is emerging in the desert as children of God. As God’s children we must learn to depend on Him and choose His ways over Babylon in all circumstances. The desert is the testing and growing place for us. It is the place where we learn to know our God—the place where God Himself provides for us. Finally, we must establish ourselves in the kingdom by complete trust and obedience to Him. “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land” (Isa. 1:19, nkjv).

The journey will be difficult, but in Christ we have the victory. There may be setbacks and failures along the way, but He is more than able to see us through to our destination. Others have made it. We can too. Remember the words of the author of Hebrews:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish… Think about all He endured when sinful people did such terrible things to Him, so that you don’t become weary and give up” (Hebrews 12:1–3, nlt)

God could give you everything you needed to live a carefree life, but then He knows you well; if you did not need others, you would live your life selfishly. He designed you so that you would need others. Whether it is for food, clothing, shelter or relationships, it is a part of His perfect design that we work and live together.

If we could believe that God does care for the beautifully dressed wildflowers, then we could grasp how much He would care for us. We speculate at the cliff of faith, contemplating the risk of leaping into His arms. We haven’t yet decided if He’s God or not. Is He Love or not? And if He isn’t, I want to know now so that I don’t waste another minute on this—but the only way to know is to leap!

Sessions in Pain, pg. 202

The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it (1 Thess. 5:25 BSB).

I have found that when it comes to the cleansing of my mind from the ways of Babylon, it is my human goodness and human wisdom that gets in the way of the Holy Spirit more than anything else. I justify my right way of resolving issues over the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, over and over again. I’m like a person clinging to the rocks in path of the River. Once again, I become stagnant because I will not move on with the Spirit of God. The rock I cling to may be fear or pride. I cling to it at the expense of my River journey out of Babylon. But I can choose to release my grip by faith and allow the Spirit to carry me where He wills. I must choose to consult Him about every situation so that I remain on the course of His mighty River. “The old life is gone. A new life has begun!” (2 Cor. 5:17, nlt).

Beloved, God may allow your dreams to be broken, your heart to be broken, and your things to be broken—all to bring you to Him; and in doing this He is being good to you. God is the One and only place of true security and love, and He is passionate about you and will not let anything or anyone stand in the way of bringing you to Himself. Sessions in Pain pg.181

AUTHOR’S COMMENT: So many things can get in the way of our drawing near to Christ. We don’t ask for these things, it just happens in this troubled and complicated world. But Christ is faithful and determined to run through a troop and leap over walls to get to you – this is Love.